Recreational cycling for health is still allowed in the UK. The current guidelines are that during the lockdown you can exercise outside once a day, and cycling is permitted, so long as you cycle alone or with members of your household. We created an easily digestible video to talk about the government guidelines, plus a couple more tips on keeping safe.

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There is much safety advice but the actual regulations covering exercise in the emergency laws enacted by the Government last week – The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020(link is external) lists exercise as one of the exceptions to Section 6 (1) “During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse”  covered by Section 6. (2) "For the purposes of paragraph (1), a reasonable excuse includes the need—"  (b) "to take exercise either alone or with other members of their household". That’s it.  When it comes to excercise – as with most everything else they cover – the emergency powers are vague and leave plenty of room for the Government to interpret them and re-interpret them in any way that suits the situation. 

This is where the 'safety advice comes in, the vagueness of the act means that some things the public, and police forces are interpreting as the law – are not actually covered by it, such as there is no limit in the act to the number of times a day you can exercise, nor is there any specific bar on driving somewhere to take exercise but, and I think we can all agree on this as part of its efforts to stop the coronavirus, we clearly shouldn't be doing those things. Here's the current safety advice: 

• Do ride on your own
• Don’t go out for a recreational/training ride on your bike more than once a day
• Do stay local
• Don’t drive somewhere to ride
• Do ride within your limits
• Do keep a safe distance from other cyclists
• Do make sure that you're self-sufficient
• Don’t share bikes or equipment

Our colleagues at road.cc have even more updated information on this situation in relation to cycling so check out this regularly updated article. 

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